The Hills: Tequila: The Magic Personality Revealer

Happy spring, my young chickies! Did you spend a long, bitterly cold winter missing the vicarious sunshine of Los Angeles, Lauren Conrad and her comrades? Neither did I. More importantly, did you miss me? Luckily, this week’s double-episode season premiere featured partial makeups, partial breakups, and an inexplicable overabundance of blow-up doll impressions by our fair heroines, so there’s plenty of ground to cover. Welcome to “The Hills”!

As Lauren recaps last season for us, she intros season 5 by remarking that her birthday was approaching. Isn’t it always someone’s birthday on this show? I’m beginning to think that the producers just invent birthdays, half-birthdays and very merry un-birthdays as a reason to gather these bitches together for a drama-fest. In any case, at a generic-sounding place called Snack Bar, Stephanie Pratt is sitting patiently at a table and staring blankly into space. Either she’s waiting for someone or she’s stoned out of her gourde. And although Heidi meets her there, I’m still going to go with the latter explanation, based on her following behavior.

She says that “life is, like, really relaxed right now.” You live in L.A. and you don’t have a job. Isn’t life always relaxed? But I’m guessing it’s not just the sunshine that’s setting her into an abyss of bliss. As she talks about some fictional Fit’Em class that Lauren’s not in, which apparently makes her feel helpless and alone, I can’t help but be struck by her resemblance to Courtney Love.

Heidi asks, “Isn’t Lauren’s birthday coming up?” After a moment of silence, Stephanie begins swooning “Awwwwww… best friend… remembered!” Heidi looks slightly annoyed by her dippiness and reiterates, “Yeah. I remembered. Are you doing anything for it?” Stephanie gazes through Heidi for a moment, then confirms that Lo is, in fact, throwing LC a surprise party. On a yacht. Heidi testily asks Steph if she’s going. Of course she is! She and LC are total besties! Steph’s head lolls around for a bit before she asks, “Mm. Did you wanna go?…” Fantastic. Nothing like inviting the expressly UNinvited to a party with no escape route.

Heidi thinks it’s odd that since she and LC have been on a texting basis lately, SURELY Lo or Blahdrina would have thought to invite her along. Of course! Because a mode of communication where you not only don’t see each other, you also don’t want to hear the other person’s voice or read an entire, abbreviation-free sentence by them is considered true friendship. Well, perhaps. This is “The Hills.”

Stephanie generously offers to bring Heidi along, insisting it will be no big deal. “I think you’re fine,” she says. “One hundred percent!” First of all, we all know that Stephanie’s 100% is everyone else’s No F-ing Way, and secondly, um, I know this is fake and all, but would it have KILLED her to just call (or text!) one of the hostesses to make sure an extra guest would be welcomed? Emily Post would have a fit!

Okay, so while everyone else in America is getting fired and losing their homes, these bitches are throwing a party on a yacht. A gambling party, by the way. So Lo and Blahdrina toddle into a dessert shop to pick up the cake and talk about their ultra-exclusive guest list. Evidently, Princess Heidi isn’t the only one these hostesses dared to blacklist from their ball. Blahdrina elected not to invite Pigpen, either. “Even after The Ring?” Lo inquires, her voice lightly concealing her condescension. Blahdrina admits that the ring didn’t mean anything (thank you!) and that the occasion in Palm Springs was the only time he’d ever been sincere to her. Hmm, manipulative, talking shit about her friends, and giving her jewelry that signifies nothing is him being real? Sounds about right. “Hmmmmmmmmmmm,” Lo nods, probably holding her lips together to prevent her from saying what she really thinks.

They talk about how LC and Heidi have been texting each other (what are they, fuckbuddies?) and Lo gets very defensive of LC as Blahdrina remarks that she knows Heidi will stop at nothing to be Lauren’s friend again… that “she’ll do whatever it takes.”

Later that night, as the party bus chauffeurs the ladies to the dock, they discuss their preferred methods of champagne uncorking, and for a moment I wonder if “uncork” is what the kids are calling fellatio these days. “I like to pop it,” LC says with an accompanying sound effect. “Yeah, but then it explodes everywhere,” Blahdrina counters. “Yeah, but it’s fun,” LC purrs.

Meanwhile, Stephanie and Heidi are getting ready and as we get a close-up of Heidi’s sky-high stilettos, I understand why she always looks like she’s going to fall over.

Heidi confesses she hasn’t told anyone, at all, ever, except the cameras, that she’s going to this fiesta. Stephanie thinks she’s crazy, which is like Pam Anderson saying Dolly Parton’s boobs look fake. Just then, Spencer enters, and Heidi straight-up lies to him about who else will be at this party… something something WHY WON’T STEPHANIE STOP TERRIFYING ME WITH HER FACE??

Anyway, Heidi eventually admits that there is the possibility that LC might be there. Spencer responds by maturely informing her that he has a guys’ night out to attend! Complete with techno music! So there! And he huffs out with the last word (or, rather, the last untzs-untzs-untzs).

At Marina Del Rey, the girls emerge from their limo and they’ve got LC all tied up and ready for some action.

A gaggle of hangers-on yell “Surprise!” as she gets onto the boat, and she responds by wincing and fluffing her hair up. I’d be pissed too if someone made me wear a blindfold and that’s all I got out of it.

At a shitty bar elsewhere in town, Spencer and his evermore plastic face (which is beginning to remind me of Bruce Jenner and his shiny visage) is ogling a dippy bartender with the most obnoxious little-girl, nasally voice, along with a well-cast new friend, Charlie, hereafter known as Captain Doucheface.

They politely request shots of Patròn. Isn’t he banned by the international laws of marriage and good sense to never drink tequila again, unless he wants to get his ass whupped by a bunny sloper named Darlene Montag? He tells the waitress the last time he drank tequila he got married, but it didn’t count because it was in another country. That’s kind of funny, because you actually can get married in another country and have it be recognized by the U.S. But I’m pretty sure “spiritual” ceremonies, as well as “I got totally wasted and was tricked into it” ceremonies, don’t count. They throw back their shots and Spencer continues to flirt with little miss gloss lips, while creepy Charlie doesn’t utter a word the entire time, just sits back and watches the interaction intensely. Not unlike Peter Stormare’s character in “Fargo.”

I have a philosophy about tequila. That is, when you are drunk from it, you will end the night either fighting or fucking. At present, Spencer seems veering one way…

On the yacht, the captain has, thankfully, waited to depart until the real guest arrived.

LC, half-interested in her game of roulette, sees Heidi across the room and treats us to the icy stare we’ve all grown to know, love, and associate with her friendship with Heidi. She begrudgingly hugs Heidi and thanks her for her well-wishes, while across the room, Stephanie asks Lo, “Do you think this is okay?” If you have to ask, the answer is automatically no. “Well, if she’s here, she’s here,” Lo shrugs. Which just means there’s nothing she can do about it, so why even bother trying to throw Steph overboard?

Just then, LC approaches. Uh oh, she must be upset: she’s stroking Lo’s hair.

“So, fun question,” she says. I bet you ten bucks the question won’t be nearly as fun as she’s promising. “Which one of you invited Heidi?” I knew it. That question had nothing to do with confetti, tropical beaches or even bondage. Stephanie smirks. “Pshh… Lo…?” What?! Is she seriously passing this off to the girl’s roommate and best friend from childhood? “Well, I know LO didn’t. I was just kind of being, like, nice,” LC says sweetly. Yes, that was similar to nice, but somehow not the same.

Heidi asks Blahdrina if she thinks LC’s okay with her being there. Blahdrina nervously bobbles her head in a few diagonal directions as though she can’t remember which way means “yes” or at least “I don’t know how to lie.” Across the room, Stephanie is explaining that Heidi is the same person that LC used to know and love, just with no backbone and only 1/16th of a brain now instead of 1/12th. LC doesn’t care, and rants about Spencer while some chick in the background hoots and hollers about winning her blackjack game. Way to keep it classy, MTV.

Back at the dive bar, more Patròn is being consumed and Spencer declares that this was “my favorite shot of my whole life.” Not to be romantic, but what about the shots you took right before your fake wedding? Do they mean nothing to you? For that matter, do your fake vows mean nothing either??? Which brings me to another point: if two people on a fake reality show have a fake ceremony in another country, does it all cancel out and make the marriage real?

Who should walk in and sit in a booth behind them but Stephanie’s ex-whatever, Camwrong, and his crew. Spencer goes over to say hello and happily needles Cam about his failed relationship with Steph. Camwrong ignores him (wisely – maybe he’s not so wrong after all) and instead inquires about the hot bartender. Spencer says they’re all having a “boys’ night out,” which is followed by Captain Doucheface making a gesture which may or may not be lewd.

Spence returns to his seat and Stacie The Bartender giggles that the more she drinks, the more she dances. Spencer asks what will get her up on the bar to dance and I think I’m going to lose my spaghetti. She replies “Pour Some Sugar On Me,” which I’ve long maintained is a song designed specifically to invoke the stripper fantasies of drunk bitches. Thanks, Def Leppard. Just as I’m thinking this, Stacie remarks that “it’s the ultimate, like, get up on the bar and strip song.” Spencer flirtatiously tells her she missed her calling. Don’t worry, I’m sure there’s time enough in Stacie’s young life to become a topless dancer.

Meanwhile, Cameron is executing his passive-aggressive revenge on Spencer by texting Steph about the Patròn Spokesman’s illicit goings-on. On the high seas, it’s the usual “Hills” birthday party: the birthday girl sullenly blows out her candles while her arch nemesis sulks in the corner and thinks about how hard her life is. Stephanie gets Cameron’s text and appropriately freaks out, sharing the juicy gossip with Blahdrina, who wonders aloud, “Why would Spencer flirt with a bartender?” Um, have you ever MET Spencer? He gave you roses the day after one of his first dates with Heidi. Who, by the way, immediately sits down and asks what’s going on. “Do you EVEN wanna know right now?” Steph asks her. Way to dissuade her. As Heidi listens with horror, I wonder if she’s been using her teeth-whitening system on her sclerae.

Heidi is totes buggin’ and dashes out to try and leave the party. During the commercial break, she realizes she’s on a goddamn boat and she’s going to have to swim for it. But her hair won’t survive the trip so she settles for calling Spencer on his cellie.

As his phone is ringing, Spencer is slurring, “Thank you! Thank you. You are BETTER than Oprah, Stezzie.” I can only theorize that they were discussing Stacie’s ultra-successful book club. He finally picks up his phone and Heidi reams him out, and as Spencer unconvincingly defends himself, Cameron smirks in the corner. Maybe he’s got a little Pratt spirit in him after all. Spencer is infuriated and declares his intention to duel with Cam. Heidi offers a splendid damsel wail of, “Spencer?!” as he hangs up on her and prepares to change his tequila-drinking plans from fucking to fighting.

Contrary to that thought, Captain Douchebag lazily suggests that they “forget about it and get out of here. Let’s go. Let’s bounce. Let’s call it a night.” Then he runs out of synonyms for “leave” and Spencer has no choice but to make good on his promise to kick the shit out of Cam. He confronts the evil texter and they engage in the ancient male fighting dance, a ritual performed among hundreds of species of animals and even some lower forms of humans. Watch as the males circle each other, puffing out their chests and shaking their heads from side to side, each signaling that the other has crossed boundaries. The blond male warns the other one by saying he’s just made it real, dawg, and finally the two males near the dance’s climax by looking like they’re about to make out with each other.

Finally, Spencer tears into Cameron with a few solid, insane punches, and must be pulled off him by security. Damn. Is this shit real?? There’s a nice glimmer of rage in Spencer’s eyes as he pummels his sister’s ex-boyfriend.

After he leaves Cameron bleeding from the mouth and chin, Spencer grabs his janky leather jacket and mutters to the Devil On His Shoulder, “Let’s roll.” OH! So that was the magic synonym. Too bad Captain Doucheface didn’t think of it in time.

On the boat, the girls are wondering what’s going on and a guy off-camera yells, “Yo, Spencer just hit Cameron! Out of nowhere!” Who the hell was that, anyway? LC and Heidi scurry off to the corner to have a nationally televised private moment. LC tries to tell Heidi that it’s fine, boys fight all the time, hasn’t she seen the O.Snapp Male Fighting Dance documentary? But Heidi frets that she just doesn’t know what exactly he was doing at that bar anyway. LC’s frustration reaches its peak and she rolls her eyes and scoffs. “Can I be real?” she asks Heidi.

LC goes for it anyway and informs Heidi for the millionth time that “he’s an asshole. He’s an awful person.” Heidi looks down and moans that she’s never had anything like this happen to her before. What about that time he got the Playboy Bunnies’ numbers? “The last thing I wanted to do was come here and cause all this drama,” she whines. Ha! Yeah fucking right, that’s what you get paid to do! If you didn’t go places to make drama, I’d be out of a non-paying job! Please, let’s all make like Lauren and be real here.

LC says she doesn’t like Spencer and that she doesn’t know what to do. Heidi agrees that she doesn’t know either. I guess we’re all idiots in this together then! They both get really shiny and then they both get really fucking weepy and cry about how much they love each other and how hard it is to be apart and their voices get higher and higher and more hysterical as the party music fades and the soft piano music takes over. They gasp for breath and soon I am too, I am laughing so hard at their hysteria.

“My favorite stories are my stories with you!” Heidi declares. They embrace and sob openly while I roll on the floor laughing my ass off, as the abbreviation goes. They decide to celebrate their reclaimed friendship with a drink and an impromptu eyeliner reapplication session.

But the fun doesn’t stop there! Now it’s time for Round 2 of tonight’s double feature, which asks the question: which is worse – forgiving a bad BF or forgiving a bad BFF?

We start at Steph’s house, where Spencer enters and turns down a free quesadilla. Surely something must be wrong. Stephanie’s morphing weird face turns sour as he reprimands her for reading a text message without checking with him first. Who is he, Cingular? He insults her sense of loyalty, which we all saw coming. Before I can even think of a snarky comment about his obsession with loyalty, Stephanie tells him straight up that that very obsession has cost him every friend in his life and now even his sister. She adds that he doesn’t even know how to exist without Heidi. Wow! Girlfriend’s having a complete, coherent thought and is delivering it without interruption. It’s almost too good to be true! “What are you going to do when you’re single?” she asks. He does a double take and asks when, exactly, he is going to become single. She snickers with disdain and I kind of wish she was here so I could high-five her. Pretty sure that’s never gonna happen again.

At Chateau LauLo, LC is claiming that as a grown-up she doesn’t expect presents for her birthday anymore. (just surprise parties on yachts.) Blahdrina agrees. Liars both!

Lo joins them in the kitchen and they dish about the previous night’s events, Lo and Blah insisting the bad shit was not their fault. “Who put me on the boat?” LC says pointedly.

Across town, Heidi is a woman on a mission.

She’s striding purposefully to The Dime, the dive bar where the infamous flirt ‘n’ fight night occurred. She pokes her head in slowly, as though no one is going to notice the bar door opening at four o’clock in the afternoon.

She approaches Stacie with the ferocity of a lion. Well, kind of.

As she speaks about Spencer, she doesn’t accuse this ditzy ho-bag of wrongdoing, nor confront her about anything that happened. Evidently she just came in to ask Stacie whether, if this was her man, she would care that he did this. Stacie says yes. “You WOULD care,” Heidi repeats, nodding. What, is she wearing a wire or something? Stacie then claims, hands spread in faux ignorance, that she had no idea he had a girlfriend (even though he told her he’d just gotten married). She says that his flirtation was making her “feel really weird,” which we’d never guess by her giggles and constantly bobbing tits while she talked to him.

Heidi is livid and says she can’t believe he was talking to her like that; and she was just about to marry him! “Good luck with that,” Stacie says somewhat bitchily. Later, Heidi sits and stares at the floor of her apartment as she waits for her douchebag to come home. She informs him that she talked to the bartender and he replies snidely, “Was that fun or what?” Pouty McGhee tells him everything Stacie told her about him and his eyes widen with disbelief. But surely not at his own behavior.

Heidi begins to yell at him for disrespecting her when Spencer says coolly, “Yeah, I flirted with a bartender, but the real issue is that you don’t even trust me.” Wait, what?! That’s the issue? Here I thought the issue is that you have a dick for a head. He complains that for three years he’s been stuck in the house with her 24/7, as though it’s Heidi’s fault he’s isolated them both from the world. She sardonically apologizes for keeping him away from other women and suggests he do a whole lot more of it when she goes to Colorado to figure out what they’re going to do about their relationship. Sure, it’s nice that she can just cut out of work and run away anytime she has a fight with her boyfriend, but aren’t people supposed to figure out their problems together?

Later, in the ski country…

Darlene Montag is overjoyed that her daughter’s had a fight with her wretch of a man. She and Heidi sit at the kitchen counter and talk about how frustrating life is while Momtag delivers the advice that everyone else has been telling Heidi: dump that jerk-off.

Unfortunately, she never tells her to stop dying her hair, lighten up on the makeup and wear flats once in a goddamn while.

And from the bunny slopes to the Hollywood Hills, we join LC and Stephanie as they shop for swatches for their supposed class. LC sighs at Steph with apathy and Steph smiles, “Why aren’t you being more helpful?” Um, maybe because you should do your own work and earn your fake fashion degree on your own fake merit?

They discuss the birthday party and Stephanie is totally all, “Heidi said, Oh Lauren’s having a party? I should come’.” What! Hello! See paragraph 4, bitch! They argue about the propriety of Heidi being at LC’s birthday and Stephanie demands to know why LC can’t get along with her. “Because I hate your brother and she’s MARRYING him!” LC whispers semi-loudly. She tells Steph that if she were really her friend, she would have suggested that Heidi ask her to dinner or something. “You wouldn’t go to dinner with her,” Stephanie replies. “Then what makes you think I’d want her at my birthday?” Lauren zings.

LC draws some boundaries and insists, “Stephanie, you have to STOP pushing her on me! I’m not kidding. It’s not fair to force someone on someone else!”

At a café elsewhere, Spencer pretends to text while he waits for someone. Let’s see… Heidi’s in Colorado. Not her. His sister despises him, couldn’t be her either. Captain Doucheface? No, I’m pretty sure that guy was just an extra. Who should walk in but one Brody Jenner, complete with quick ridicule about the choice of a vegan restaurant! Spencer says it’s been too long, dude, and that his life’s been horrible.

Spencer thanks him for coming to meet him and says he’s in a desperate situation. Brody, using a whole lot of gesturing and a script-y tone of voice, does a quick recap of their friendship thus far and concludes by asking what’s going on. Wow, he’s really turned into a reality game show host. And evidently Spencer’s a contestant. He recaps the fiasco, and Brody seems unsympathetic. He asks what this means for his relationship (since when is this Dr. Phil?). Spencer says it’s bananas.

But Broday does not, in fact, offer any relationship remedies. In fact, he suggests that Spencer do 3 things: 1) spread his wings and see some other girls, 2) not put all of his eggs in Heidi’s basket, and 3) not keep himself as cooped up in his apartment as he has been doing.

Are fowl metaphors the hot new thing these days? Brody tells him he should talk to whomever he wants, then shakes his head in a way that’s at once both authoritative and dismissive. Spencer also shakes his head, gazing at Brody with admiration.

In Colorado, the Montags go out for dinner and Heidi complains that even her bones are freezing. Perhaps she should consider putting some meat on them. And I don’t mean Spencer. As they wait for their food, Momtag begins reminiscing with Heidi about some random gentleman named Colby. Heidi sighs, “Ah, yes, my first boyfriend!” while Momtag corrects affectionately, “I think he was your first love!”

Evidently Momtag has seen Colby recently and starts talking him up to Heidi. He’s got his own business, blah blah blah what a nice boy. Something tells me Heidi isn’t so into nice boys. She wants a man who will propose to her by saying he’s obsessed with her and wants to keep her away from the rest of the world. And then, who should show up but –

Because God knows the first thing you want when you flee to your childhood home to nurse a broken heart is for your parents to set you up with your ex-boyfriend. He sits down with the fam to talk about all the good old times back when Heidi had her old nose and no boobs.

Goddamn, this is embarrassing to view. Momtag says that he’s a “good, strong Christian boy” and that he’s the only one she trusted to drive Heidi around town. Sure, but did he ever buy her a tiara??

I feel like I’m watching a bad Holly Hunter rom-com, at least until Heidi brings up Spencer, saying he’s a purple belt in jujitsu. Momtag counters by adding the fun fact that, indeed, he just got into a fight. The conversation pretty much spirals downward from there, everyone talking about Heidi’s strained relationship with her fiancée and all, while Colby sits politely and says, “Mmm-hmmm. Mm-hmmm…”

There’s a small interjectional scene where LC and Brody have a drink and talk about everything that happened in the last episode – Broday hates Stephanie, LC hates Spencer – but it’s nothing new and kinda boring so I’m skipping it.

Back to CO. Heidi and Mom are having some hot cocoa out on the deck (how fucking precious) while Heid reflects on how drama-free her life is when she’s away from her job, her boyfriend, and all of her responsibilities and being taken care of by her parents. She has a point. Momtag sighs that it was nice for her to see Colby – and that everything happens for a reason. “Maybe it wasn’t a coincidence.” Uh, yeah, I think that’s exactly what you call it when you set someone up. NOT a coincidence.

Heidi still defends herself and Spencer, and we all know they’ll end up together in the end (and in parts of the middle) because that’s what couples who are rewarded for being dysfunctional do. But for now, Spencer and the Devil On His Shoulder are back where they started, in a race to the bottom of a bottle of tequila with fair Stacie, who has amped up her blue eyeshadow and is no doubt relishing her moment in the spotlight.

Ugh, and Captain Doucheface is like the Will Ferrell character in “Wedding Crashers” – old, creepy and kind of sad. Spencer tells his woes to his new ho, who responds by matter-of-factly agreeing that when she met Heidi she thought she was nuts. Well, at least she kept that judgment to herself by lying to Heidi’s face and acting like a sympathetic girlfriend. Talk about nuts. This weird threesome toasts to “no crazy girlfriends” (courtesy of Stacie) and I begin to notice how, when people on this show get drunk, they always end up looking right at the camera. Heidi did it constantly right before they got “married,” and Spencer’s doing it now.

Spencer and Stacie (EW. EW. THEIR NAMES GO TOGETHER LIKE DO-WOP SHE BE-BOP) take their flirtation to the next level, Spencer asking Stacie if there’s going to be a next time, and she responding that it’s up to him. Disgusting. He notes that it’s the end of the night, and she leans over to present her cleavage as bait. They look lustily into each other’s eyes, she purses her lips like she’s dying to get a cock between them, and Captain Doucheface fades into the background. His work here is done.

This season looks like it could be rather explosive, in the way that diarrhea is sometimes explosive anyway. Care to join me? I’ll be here all season. Let’s wipe up this shit together. And now all of the odd blow-up doll faces the girls made on tonight’s episode. See you on the boards, suckas! xoxOsnapp